


the kids aren't alright

by liveyourtemptation



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Grief, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:19:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9135850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liveyourtemptation/pseuds/liveyourtemptation
Summary: Steve is sitting next to him when the OA dies. OR the one where Alfonso might actually get what he wants.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i have at least 11 emotions about alfonso. maybe even 14.

Steve is sitting next to him when the OA dies. All Alfonso can think is that it shouldn't be like this, that she couldn't have meant _this_ , right? The hospital is bleak and boring and this cannot be the end of OA's journey. This lacks any kind of pathos, there is nothing from what have filled her stories, what he had felt back at the school when the five of them had moved like one. Where was the grandness? This was all chatter, and hum of machines, and Buck crying in his arms, and the OA bleeding out in the next room. This cannot be it, this cannot be the end.

 

He doesn't realize he is crying until Steve puts a hand on his shoulder and looks so utterly helpless at him, more helpless than back at the school, it breaks Alfonso's heart even more. There is an instinct awakening in him to comfort, to protect but he only has so many arms and they are already wrapped around Buck and anyway, he doesn't know how he is supposed to make this right, to carry them through this. So he just sits there, watches Betty and Jesse on the other side of the room, the way they lean into each other like two buildings slowly collapsing.

 

It's weeks later and Steve still sleeps in Alfonso's room, practically lives there because he doesn't want to go home and his parents don't care anymore. They have dragged up an old mattress from the basement and somehow fitted it into Alfonso's tiny room between the wardrobe and the bed. A couple nights of the week Buck or Jesse or both of them stay over, too, and then it's the four of them, breathing loudly in the dark silence as none of them can sleep.

 

Alfonso has allowed them into his life like one takes in stray cats: you're not ready for it but what you're gonna do? Send them away again? No. He isn't even embarrassed when they hear his mother yelling at him or see the way the house looks like. They have seen him already, they have seen his invisible self and there is nothing to hide anymore, nothing to be ashamed of, not in front of them. They help him keep the cigarettes away from his baby brothers and Steve cuts his cocaine supply which leads to a fight that almost gets physical but it's hard to stay mad at each other when you literally go to bed together and have to negotiate bathroom time in the morning.

 

“You're like married, you know that?” Jesse says at lunch.

 

Steve flips him off and Alfonso rolls his eyes.

 

“I'm buying him lunch because I don't pay rent, okay?” Steve says.

 

Jesse and Buck exchange a look that Alfonso doesn't understand and that irks him. He keeps thinking about it all through calculus class and practice but he doesn't come to any conclusion.

 

Steve waits for him outside the school and they go home talking about nothing important. While Alfonso opens the door he drops his question casually.

 

“About what Jesse said. You think we hang out too much?”

 

Steve looks at him irritated and Alfonso knows that he doesn't want to know Steve's answer, couldn't take it one way or another. He wants to go inside but Steve gets in front of him and really looks at him, and that's something new, something Steve has picked up from the OA and it makes Alfonso uncomfortable because it goes right down to his core.

 

“Why? Do you feel crowded?” Steve asks. “I mean, I understand if it is too much to have me here all the time.”

 

“No, it's not,” Alfonso hurries to say. “It's not that.”

 

“So you're just worried about a stupid comment?” Steve asks dumbfounded as if he cannot imagine Alfonso worry about so trivial matters like the opinion of other people.

 

“I don't know-,” Alfonso says and cringes. This is getting awkward. “Don't worry about it.”

 

Steve tilts his head up and narrows his eyes and thinks for a second. Then he leans in.

 

“Would it be so bad to be married to me?” He whispers with a grin and then he is gone, inside the house and Alfonso stands on the threshold and tries to catch his breath.

 

Of course they're all still looking for proof. No one tells the others about it, they do it in secret because it still hurts too much. Alfonso is completely fucking lost. He had believed her, than he had found the books and was so sure everything was a lie. But after the shooting he wasn't so sure anymore. He had felt something back then but it could have been fear and adrenaline.

 

He actually kept the books except for the one about the angels, Buck is still holding on to that, reading it over and over again, carrying it around even in school. One evening Steve finds Alfonso softly banging his head against the books about NDE's and takes it away to replace it with his warms hands and he holds Alfonso's head until it quiets down, until Alfonso cant think straight again.

 

“How do you deal with it?” Alfonso asks into the dark, curled up next to Steve on the mattress very carefully arranged to be as close as possible without actually touching him. He can feel Steve turn his head to him.

 

“She looked happy,” Steve says quiet. “I think she was happy in the end.”

 

“But what about us?” Alfonso asks and he thinks, it's not fair. It's so not fair. They had just found each other, this crooked family, and she had left so soon.

 

There is motion and then Steve is wrapped around him, one leg over his, an arm over his chest, tucking Alfonso's head under his chin. Alfonso thinks he's going to have a heart attack, but somehow he manages to turn his face into the crook where Steve's neck and shoulder meet and breathe and he cry quietly. Steve shushes him and he is awful at this, he truly is, but it calms Alfonso down anyway. Slowly he puts one arm around Steve's waist and somewhere in his subconscious he is still waiting for the punch but he knows it won't come. He falls asleep thinking of eyes the color of a frozen lake.

 

He sees Steve making out with a girl the next day and he thinks, oh alright. It's not so complicated after all, it's just being in love and getting his heart broken. Just the normal everyday shit. It's just high school. He can deal with that.

 

When his gaze drifts away from Steve and the girl there is Buck who has seen him stop dead in his tracks, and Buck sees right through him, because he always does, because he knows people and knows how they feel. Alfonso watches Buck try to smile but it turns out a frown and they walk down the corridor.

 

“Steve is an asshole,” Buck offers up after a moment.

 

“Yeah,” Alfonso says and they both love him too much to put it differently.

 

“You wanna go to prom with me?” Steve asks a few months later and Alfonso thinks that maybe violence is the answer in this particular case but refrains from punching Steve because the OA wouldn't be happy about it.

 

“You wanna shut up?” He says instead.

 

Alfonso somehow made his peace with having a one-sided crush on his bully-turned-best-friend, as much as you can make peace with something like that, but that doesn't mean he lets Steve get away with everything. He's been through the freak-out phase and is currently hovering somewhere on the line to acceptance. It won't take long and he can start getting over Steve, he tells himself. Though that's hard when you still share the same house, the same room and he pinches himself when Steve gets too close and always looks away carefully when Steve strolls into the room half-naked after showering.

 

“No, I mean it,” Steve says leaning in the door.

 

Alfonso twirls around in his chair where he sat until now to do his homework. Steve doesn't look like he is mocking him but what else could this be.

 

“Why the hell would you want to go to prom with me?” Alfonso asks.

 

“Uh, actually,” Steve massages his temples. “I had this weird dream.”

 

“Don't,” Alfonso says but it doesn't come out as sharp as he intends it to be.

 

“Why not,” Steve says and shrugs. “We're both graduating and I know no one asked you until now.” He makes the last part sound like, _because you're a loser_ , but somehow in a fond way.

 

“You're insufferable,” Alfonso says.

 

“That's why you love me,” Steve says and winks and Alfonso congratulates himself on his acting skills that he can play through this, just rolls his eyes and turns back to the desk.

 

“Come one,” Steve says completely earnest again. “Please.”

 

“Alright,” Alfonso says quietly and he isn't sure what he got himself into.

 

He does what he always does when he wants to talk about something he cannot talk about to Jesse or Steve (meaning emotions) and he doesn't want to burden Buck with it. He calls Betty. When she picks up she sounds happy, happier than in a while. After they have exchanged pleasantries Betty is quiet for a moment before she asks.

 

“Why are you calling me, Alfonso?”

 

“Steve wants to go to prom with me,” Alfonso tells her.

 

“Okay.”

 

“As a friend,” He adds. Because what else could it be.

 

“And what do you want?” Betty asks.

 

Alfonso is silent. He is leaning outside the house against a wall and he closes his eyes for a moment. He can't say what he wants, it's too big for words.

 

“You like him a lot,” Betty says and it's not a question.

 

“Yeah,” Alfonso says.

 

“Well, wait and see. Maybe you'll get what you want after all,” She says and she sounds so hopeful he almost believes her. But there is no dimension where Alfonso Sosa gets what he wants.

 

“You sound good,” He says.

 

“You know, I've been having this feeling lately,” She says. “Like she is happy wherever she is.”

 

Alfonso takes a deep breath. “How can you be so sure?”

 

“I can feel it deep inside me, like something living.”

 

Prom night comes and Alfonso is totally prepared to go alone and for Steve to show up with some girl. But they get into their suits and Steve offers to drive. He looks down, tugging on his sleeve and he looks shy in a way Alfonso has never seen him.

 

“I didn't get you any flowers,” Steve says and Alfonso thinks he might be asleep and dreaming this. “I thought flowers would be weird.”

 

“Definitely,” Alfonso says and grabs the car keys.

 

“Hey, I'm gonna drive,” Steve yells and chases Alfonso downstairs where his mother is ignoring them but Alfonso doesn't care. He's got to get to the car first.

 

But Steve is faster and he gets in front of the car door before Alfonso can open it. He's flushed red and puts out his hand.

 

“Give me the keys.”

 

“Why?” Alfonso asks.

 

“Because I asked you out that's why I should drive,” Steve says and gets even redder in the face.

 

“So this is a date,” Alfonso says and feels stupid. Steve snatches the keys out of his hand.

 

“Yeah, what did you think?” He says and gets into the car.

 

“I don't know what I was thinking,” Alfonso mumbles to himself while he walks around the car.

 

The drive to school feels longer than usual and Alfonso doesn't know where to look. Since the reality of this situation has caught up with him his heart is beating out of his chest.

 

“What did you think this was?” Steve asks again when he has parked in front of the school.

 

Alfonso turns to face Steve with all the willpower he has. “Steve, it's you-” He sighs, failing to communicate what he means. “I thought you were making fun of me. Because I- Because you noticed that I-”

 

“What?” Steve asks and he looks earnestly confused.

 

“That I like you, damnit,” Alfonso barks out. Why does it always have to be such a fight with Steve?

 

“Oh,” Steve says and his mouth drops open. “You-” Then there is a smile spreading over his face and Alfonso knows that smile, has seen it on Steve when he talks to girls, it's so self-assured and cocky it makes Alfonso think about crushing something - violently.

 

“Right, that's what I thought,” Alfonso says and gets out of the car. He crosses the parking lot. He hears Steve clambering out of the car and running after him.

 

“Wait, French!”

 

Alfonso turns on his heels at the nickname. And he wants to be angry but Steve looks good in that stupid too big suit and there is no condescension in his eyes only warmth and Alfonso is so tired.

 

And then Steve closes the distance between them and kisses him. Alfonso kisses him back and he is desperate for this, pulls Steve closer until there pressed flush against each other and Steve got his hands in his hair while he scrapes his teeth over Alfonso's lower lip. Alfonso sighs into Steve's mouth and follows up with his tongue because he wondered how this feels for month now. Steve lets him, opens his mouth for him. It's really good, Alfonso decides. Steve moans and lets one hand glide down his back to squeeze his ass.

 

Alfonso jumps and pushes Steve an arm length away. There are other students streaming past them on their way to prom but they barely take notice of them except for a few sneers. Steve is flushed and heavily breathing and grinning victoriously.

 

“Well, I wanted to do this right, and kiss you at the end of the night,” Steve says. “But you left me no choice.”

 

Alfonso looks down to where their fingers apparently magically intertwined. He is aware he is blushing and speechless and there is a knot somewhere in his guts slowly starting to dissolve. He tries a smile and for the first time in a while he means it.

 

“I hate you,” He says to Steve.

 

“Yeah, right,” Steve says and leans in to steal a quick kiss. “Let's go be very gross about this on the dance floor.”

 


End file.
